The E555 – “Long Range/High Speed Flying Wing Aircraft”

by Daniel Russ on March 24, 2018

One of the criticisms leveled at the Nazi war planners is that with world domination in their mission statements, they still did not have a four engine bomber capable of real force projection across the Atlantic, into Asia and into Central and Southern Africa. That said, in 1943, the Arado company began working on a series of heavy engine aircraft. For a while the project was called Amerika. The idea of course was to create a bomber that could reach New York or any valuable East coast city from the occupied British Isles or northern Europe. Therefore, the German High Command set goals for its parameters, and they were challenging in these early years of aviation.

The plane had to have a range of over 3000 miles and carry 4 tons of ordinance to be dropped. Over a dozen variations on the bombers configurations were rendered. I include some of these that have also been reprised as scale models.

The idea was that six BMW engines would power the flying wing. It would have 20mm cannons behind the cockpit, remotely controlled guns, and 30mmm cannons under the wings.

The work began in 1943 and On December 28, 1944, Arado cancelled the bomber.